Interview with Alumni: Kartik Raj

KR: I’ve been studying at UCLA School of Law and focusing on environmental advocacy and animal advocacy.

 

KR: I’ve always found ethics to be interesting and started reading works on moral philosophy in high school. I became more interested when I started studying political science at UCLA, and eventually took philosophy of mind and introduction to ethics with the UCLA philosophy department as GE  courses. In the ethics course, I was confronted with several mutually­ incompatible ethical systems which each seemed (prima facie) plausible to me. That course helped me realize that my moral beliefs were undeveloped and untested, and I felt a sense of urgency to learn more about ethics to decide what I was going to do with my life. At that point I decided to major in philosophy and to study ethics for the rest of my undergraduate years at UCLA.

 

KR: A background in analytical philosophy is extremely useful for studying law, and I use many of the skills I learned as an undergraduate all the time in law school. Analytical philosophy emphasizes persuasive arguments, logical inferences, and lucid prose, all of which are important in legal writing. Political and moral philosophy also underpin a lot of legal reasoning, especially on topics such as justice, wrongdoing, responsibility, and intent. Both subjects require students to effectively present and defend their conclusions, through prose and orally. In my experience, the ‘Socratic method’ is utilized even more by law school professors than in philosophy courses.

 

KR: Studying ethics helped me make many of my most important life decisions. My decisions to dedicate myself to environmental advocacy and animal advocacy, and to become a vegan, were directly driven by convictions I formed while studying moral philosophy. Philosophy also taught me important lessons about epistemic humility, and has helped me accept the moral uncertainty that humans inevitably have to deal with.

 

KR: I have a few recommendations for undergrads. These are all things I would tell my past freshman self. I’ll qualify this advice by first stating that I loved my time as a philosophy student and found it transformative in my life.

First, think carefully about what you want  to do with your philosophy degree after graduating. Studying philosophy is intrinsically valuable and can radically alter your life and understanding of the world. However, you’ll hopefully have a life beyond your years as an undergrad at UCLA; thinking ahead for that future will make you much better off. Unless you are absolutely sure that you want to dedicate your life to academic philosophy (trust me, you aren’t as sure as you might think), you should try to keep your professional options open by cultivating practical skills. It’s also important to be involved with organizations and causes that are important to you.

UCLA is a huge community with endless opportunities, so don’t limit yourself to our philosophy department, great as it is.

Also, remember that you can take philosophy classes, have philosophy friends, and learn a great deal about the field without majoring in philosophy. As an undergraduate, I thought I had to major in philosophy in order to learn ‘enough’ about the field. For many reasons, that’s not the case. Minoring in philosophy is a good option too.

If you are truly dedicated to the path of academic philosophy, I’d recommend that you try to specialize in some area or topic that you can focus on to create a strong writing sample for Ph.D. programs. Taking a contract course with a professor interested in the topic is a great way to produce a good writing sample while fulfilling your major requirements.

My most important advice: remember that our world is teeming with preventable injustice and suffering, and that many of us are able to pursue higher education due to our relative good fortune (despite the hardships and disadvantage many of us also face). As students at a leading educational institution in one of the richest nations on Earth, we have a fairly unique opportunity to have a massive positive impact on the world. When deciding how to spend your time as an undergraduate and beyond, consider the kind of impact you want to have on the world and how your chosen career/major does or doesn’t allow you to make that impact. I personally found a lot of insightful career advice from 80,000 Hours, an organization that helps people make impactful career choices. Along with other philosophy students at UCLA, I co-founded a student organization dedicated to discussing the impacts of our choices and our ability to help others, called Effective Altruism at UCLA.